TC mourns Thacher, Timberlake and Vahanian | Teachers College Columbia University

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TC mourns Thacher, Timberlake and Vahanian

BARBARA AUCHINCLOSS THACHER, alumna and former TC Trustee, died in January. CRAIG TIMBERLAKE, Professor Emeritus and a professional actor, singer and author, passed away in December. PAUL VAHANIAN, alumnus and Professor of Psychology, died in October.
BARBARA AUCHINCLOSS THACHER, alumna and former TC Trustee, died in January. Thacher, who earned her master's degree in 1965, wrote for Newsweek, the New York Times, the Herald Tribune and Harper's. She was the first female Chair of the Board of Trustees at Bryn Mawr College, her undergraduate alma mater. She served as Vice Chair of the New York City Board of Education during the administration of Mayor John Lindsay. In 1992, TC awarded Thacher its Cleveland E. Dodge Medal for Distinguished Contribution to Education.

CRAIG TIMBERLAKE, Professor Emeritus and a professional actor, singer and author, passed away in December. Timberlake, who toured as Professor Higgins in "My Fair Lady" and with a group led by Katherine Hepburn in "As You Like It," chaired TC's Department of Music and Music Education and the American Academy of Teachers of Singing, and he served as President of the New York Singing Teachers Association.

PAUL VAHANIAN, alumnus and Professor of Psychology, died in October. The son of a cobbler who had emigrated from Armenia to escape the genocide there, Vahanian was a much-decorated World War II veteran who earned an M.A. in Marital and Family Relations from Teachers College in 1952 and a Doctorate in Education in 1957. He was an innovative educator who taught the first TC course in family therapy and group dynamics. Repeatedly rated a favorite by TC students, he was a humanist who promoted spirited discussions and brought the cognitive therapist Albert Ellis and other leading-edge thinkers to visit his classroom. As a marital therapist he was influenced by an eclectic mix of thinkers, from Freud and Jung to Rogers, Ernest "Lank" Osborne and Fritz Perls.


Published Wednesday, Apr. 25, 2007
Barbara Auchincloss Thacher

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